


The Haunting of Howland House

by genericghouligan



Series: Demon Shane [1]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Case Fic, Demon Shane Madej, Gen, Ghosts, Minor Violence, POV Shane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 04:10:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16189793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genericghouligan/pseuds/genericghouligan
Summary: In Shane’s defense, he’s pretty sure he would be a skeptic if he were human.





	The Haunting of Howland House

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted on my tumblr @ genericghouligan

In Shane’s defense, he’s pretty sure he would be a skeptic if he were human. Actually, he still is a skeptic. Half of the crap Ryan says to him is just absolute nonsense. Especially when it comes to the paranormal.

And it’s not like he’s omniscient. He is skeptical of everything he can’t confirm empirically, even though admittedly, as a demon, he has a few extra senses and several extra centuries to gather empirical data about the existence of certain things. So it’s not an act.

“For the last time. Ryan. There’s no such thing as demons,” Shane says.

Okay, so it is kind of an act.

But the fact is, the demons Ryan is so scared of? The ghosts that he describes? They don’t match up with what Shane’s seen.

And for the record? The fans aren’t on to him. He didn’t start the rumors and jokes, but he also didn’t let them simmer away and disappear. It’s like that one post he saw, screencapped from Tumblr on some other social media site, or maybe sent to him by a friend, about how Bruce Wayne being Batman is a joke Bruce helped encourage.

The fans aren’t on to him, but they know, but they don’t really know. Some of them might even truly suspect. But there’s an infinite capacity to ignore the truth that isn’t actually unique to humans.

“Get out of here,” he tells the ghost, who is sitting at the piano, unaware of the gaping hole in the side of her head, marring her once-pretty face. “Don’t you know you’re dead, you stupid human?”

She keeps playing, gazing at sheet music that isn’t there, her fingers moving slowly, but not inexpertly, across the ivory keys. She stops almost through the piece and starts back over.

It’s when the song is just picking up a little from the first soft notes of the piece that Ryan comes flying down the hallway, and bursts out - “did you hear that?”

Shane turns away from the piano.

“Hear what?”

“Music!” Ryan says.

“Oh,” says Shane, “I was playing a little tune. I turned off my mic. Sorry, buddy, I didn’t think you’d be able to hear.”

Ryan sighs. “You asshole, you scared the crap out of me!” Then, “I didn’t know you could play.”

“Oh, I mean, who doesn’t know a little piano?” He says.

“Now you have to play something, or the viewers will be pissed.”

Shane scoffs. They’re on YouTube, the viewers are always pissed. Above all things uniquely human, all things demons could never in a million years come close to, it’s the raw viciousness of a YouTube comment section. No amount of primordial, ethically neutral chaos beings could ever sow as much mayhem as a single internet troll.

“You owe me for giving me a heart attack. Besides, it’ll prove you actually have some talents. And,” he declares, “if you don’t play something I’ll say it was a ghost and you’re just lying cos you don’t want to admit you heard it.”

The woman’s spirit isn’t playing right now, hasn’t been since Ryan came running in. She’s standing by the window, the one that the stray bullet had struck her through.

Shane doesn’t know how to play the piano. Not really. But he’d watched her play the notes over and over.

He sits down, grumbling under his breath about only doing this for the Boogaras who’d be embarrassed by Ryan’s underhanded tactics, and poises his hands over the keys.

“I don’t even know what song I was playing,” Shane says, “it was just sort of automatic.”

“Now I’m starting to think you played creepy piano music on your phone, you big faker,” Ryan goads him on.

“I was playing,” he insists. Draws on Maggie’s memories, the faint imprint of her soul and the lingering buzzing of energy where her fingers had touched the keys.

And he plays.

Maggie’s spirit becomes more opaque, but blurred around the edges, like smudged chalk, the longer he plays.

“This doesn’t sound like a bit of piano,” Ryan says.

Shane doesn’t stop playing, can’t stop playing, because he thinks he gets it now. “Shouldn’t have challenged me if you didn’t want to see something awesome, baby!” He says.

Ryan edges closer. “Dude, where did you learn to play piano?”

“Music is just math,” he says.

“And you said you didn’t remember the piece.”

“I don’t remember what it’s called, and yeah, I was on autopilot before. Now you’ve summoned up the demon of musical talent.”

“Yeah, yeah. You can stop showing off.”

“Nah,” says Shane, “I’ve got to finish the piece.”

“How long is it? We don’t have all night.”

“Oh, but we have time for like fifteen minutes with your stupid spirit box,” Shane says. “It’s a few minutes.”

Maggie’s got color to her now, even though she looks like ink on paper that got wet. Like someone has dragged the satuaration from 0 and back towards normal.

She sits beside him on the bench, movements jerky, like film skipping a frame.

Ryan is quiet.

He approaches the end, and when he hits the first note she never reached, longer and lower than the previous, she stands - steps to the window - brushes aside the curtains to look outside -

She looks like a living person, briefly, so briefly, out of the corner of Shane’s eye.

And then the bullet flies through her skull as he hits the last note, and this time her ghost bleeds, instead of wandering with an exit wound unnoticed.

She bleeds. The note lingers. Maggie falls. Down. Down, through the floorboards, her spirit finally going through the motions her body had.

Finally understanding.

Shane springs up from the piano bench. Hams it up for Ryan, bowing and crowing over having untold hidden talents.

“Hidden talent at being a real dick,” says Ryan.

The banter makes it easier to ignore the sudden emptiness of the house.

* * *

 

One of Ryan’s Post Mortem picks suggests Shane was possessed by a ghost, explaining his sudden piano talent. The fan even points out that the piece - John Field’s Nocturne No. 5 - would have been a contemporary one for Maggie Howland.

It’s tagged #TheTruthIsOutThere and #Boogara.

Shane throws up his hands. “I show any talent and suddenly I’m clearly possessed by a ghost?”

“It does make more sense than you actually having talent,” Ryan says, and Shane mugs an affronted look.

“But actually, I’m gonna have to agree with you here - ”

“Shaniacs, note the date and time, Ryan ‘Deliberately Contrary’ Bergara - ”

“I’m deliberately contrary? Me? You invented deliberately contrary, you contrary asshole.”

“You were about to agree with me, don’t stop on my account.”

“No, I’m not gonna say it now.”

“If you don’t say it I’m going to assume that you were going to say 'you’re right, Shane, ghosts are bullshit’.”

“I wasn’t - all right, fine, I’ll say what I was going to say.”

“All right, let’s hear it.”

“You sure? You ready for this?”

“Let’s hear it, come on, Bergara, we don’t have all day!”

Ryan shoots him a sly glance. “All right, but remember you specifically asked for this.”

“Stop dicking around and say what it is.”

“I was going to say, you’re right, it probably isn’t ghost possession because - ”

“Because ghosts aren’t real?”

“No, shut up, it’s because ghosts can’t possess someone who’s already possessed by a demon.”

“I - ” he laughs, “is that how it works?”

“What do you mean, is that how it works? How is a ghost going to possess someone already occupied by a demon?”

“I just figured it was a clown car situation.”

Ryan wheezes. The fans are gonna love this.

“A clown - no, it’s not a clown car situation!”

“So they can share real estate in a house, bunch of demons and ghosts chilling out, but in people - ”

“People aren’t houses - it’s single occupancy!”

“Single occupancy,” Shane repeats.

“I hate you,” Ryan mutters, then raises his voice, “The point is - Shane really does know how to play piano.”

“I do! I do. Not to brag, but. I can hammer out a tune or two.”

“So far I’ve seen you play exactly one tune.”

“I said one or two.”

“Not exactly staggering me with those hidden skills, buddy.”

So, the fans aren’t onto him, but it is common knowledge.

Humanity’s relationship with truth will never cease to fascinate him.

That’s the whole catch with these ghosts, isn’t it? They just can’t wrap their heads around their own mortality. Sometimes it’s just so sudden and senseless, like Maggie Howland and a stray bullet.

He’s - maybe immortal? - so this is one of those human things that he’s stuck watching from the outside. How life can just be snatched away in an instant, leaving a decaying body and an echo of their last moments born of the refusal to accept reality.

And the fans dance with the truth, or a version of it - he doesn’t know Satan, and he doesn’t have wings or horns or a tail, unless he’s making the effort - but can’t quite accept it, until it’s just a joke.

And Ryan can chase the truth, and believe so wholeheartedly in things that do sort-of exist, without ever really reaching an understanding.

**Author's Note:**

> Field's Nocturne no.5 is a favorite of mine from piano lessons, and it's remarkably sad for being done in major key. You ought to give it a listen.
> 
> Maggie Howland is not a real person, or even a real folklore account. Most of the time I draw from actual folklore, but in this case I wanted to illustrate a principle of humanity from Shane's perspective instead of doing an actual "case" from folklore.


End file.
